Michael Dell gets green light

The news that Dell shareholders have approved its privatisation deal, and Twitter's IPO filing, were the main international ICT stories last week.

At home, the year-end results from EOH and the entry of Nutanix into the local market were the highlights of a quiet week.

* Satisfactory Q1 figures from Mix Telematics, with revenue up 6.4% and profit up 6.9%.
* Very good year-end figures from EOH, with revenue up 39.6% and profit up 48.5%.
* An empowerment deal by the local arm of Zensar Technologies sees the Kapela Group taking a 25% stake.
* Cyberoam has opened a Johannesburg office.
* Nutanix, a provider of data centre infrastructure solutions, has entered the South African market via its distributor, MICROmega Technologies, and its premier partners CES SQIM, Global Z Data and VMXperts.
* A new JSE cautionary by Silverbridge Holdings.
* Renewed JSE cautionaries by Labat Africa and TCS.
* David Drummond was appointed country manager for Acer Southern Africa.
* Hans Swart resigned as country manager for Acer Southern Africa.

* Forbes Africa Magazine has predicted Ghana may become a tech-friendly hub for innovation within the next 10 years.
* The appointments of Sabrina Dar as Cisco's GM for East Africa; David Meads as Cisco's VP for Africa; Joseph Muriithi as Seacom's country manager for Kenya; and Dave Ogunlade as Cisco's GM for Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Look out for a possible rescue deal for BlackBerry by a Canadian investor.

* Cisco bought Whiptail, a solid state data storage systems company, for $415 million.
* Koch Industries acquired Molex, a supplier of connectors and interconnect components, for $7.2 billion.
* The $25 billion privatisation deal of Dell by Michael Dell, in conjunction with Silver Lake Partners.
* Ingram Micro purchased SoftCom, a Canadian cloud marketplace and global service provider.
* SAP acquired KXEN, a provider of predictive analytics technology.
* Synnex, a BPO firm, bought IBM's worldwide customer care services business, in a move that will see the latter merged into Concentrix, a Synnex subsidiary that focuses on providing platforms, people and services to support high-value interactions at every stage of the customer life cycle. The deal was worth $505 million.
* Twitter purchased MoPub, a mobile-advertising exchange start-up, for $350 million.
* Western Digital acquired Virident, a flash storage company, for $685 million.
* EU regulators said Samsung needs to offer more concessions to settle EU charges that its use of patent lawsuits against Apple breached anti-trust rules.
* The outcome of the EU investigation against Google, following further concessions offered by the latter.
* Some of the investors in Microsoft have said the company should consider a 'turnaround' expert such as Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company, or Mike Lawrie, CEO of CSC, as possible candidates to succeed Steve Ballmer.
* Carl Icahn has bowed out of his efforts to buy Dell.
* Sharp will raise $1.7 billion equity to repay debt following its 'rescue' last year.
* Quarterly losses from Palo Alto Networks.
* The appointments of Guy Laurence as CEO of Rogers Communications (was CEO of Vodafone's UK unit); Brian McAndrews as president, chairman and CEO of Pandora (ex-Microsoft executive); Ashok Vemuri as president and CEO of iGate; and Marc Zionts as CEO of Aicent, a telecommunications company.
* The resignation of Lynn Liu, CEO of Aicent.
* The retirement of Nadir Mohamed, CEO of Rogers Communications (as from 31 December).
* The death of Ray Dolby, the inventor and founder of Dolby Labs.
* An IPO filing for the NYSE by Veeva, a life-sciences focused software company.
* An IPO filing from SunEdison Semiconductor, a unit of SunEdison, formerly MEMC Electronic Materials.
* An IPO by Twitter, although as yet there is little information in this regard.

International:
* A possible rescue deal for BlackBerry by a Canadian investor.
* Possible chip supply concerns following a factory fire at SK Hynix.
* The winner for a stake in Scout24, Deutsche Telekom's digital classified business unit. Four private equity companies have been 'short-listed'.
* A possible split by Vivendi of its two divisions, ie, media and telecommunications.
* A possible additional investment in telecom Italia by Telefonica.
* A possible acquisition of Fusion-io, a company that went public earlier this year.

Africa:
* Finalisation of the Maroc Telecom deal that involves Etisalat; although Vodafone may put a spoke in the wheel by making a last-minute bid.
* The issuing of a third mobile licence in Libya later this year.

South Africa:
* Resolution on the spat between Blue Label Telecoms and Telkom SA.

* Facebook has become SA's largest social network, with 9.4 million active users, and overtaking Mxit, which has 7.4 million users, according to World Wide Worx and Fuseware.
* The worldwide smart connected device market is forecast to grow 27.8% this year, and tablet shipments predicted to surpass all PC shipments in Q4, according to IDC.
* Worldwide storage software revenue increased 4.1% in Q2 to reach nearly $3.5 billion, according to IDC.
* Big data spending will reach $114 billion by 2018, with a CAGR of 29.6% over the next five years, according to ABI Research.

* JSE All share index: Up 1.9% (highest-ever weekend close)
* Nasdaq: Up 1.7% (highest weekend close for 13 years)
* NYSE (Dow): Up 0.3%
* Top SA share movements: Ansys (+20%), ConvergeNet Holdings (+25%), Digicore (-11.3%), Huge Group (-25%), Jasco (-10.5%), Reunert (+7.1%), Sekunjalo (+10.2%) and Telemasters (+8.6%)

Last week, InformationWeek published its annual US-based 500 listing that is a ranking of the leading US users of business technology. From a technology perspective, the following were included in the top 100:
* 16: Acxiom, a consulting and business services company
* 24: NCR
* 27: Accenture
* 30: The Active Network, a provider of online registration and event management software
* 34: Enterasys Networks
* 37: AT&T
* 38: Comcast
* 40: Intel
* 46: Verizon Communications
* 48: Equifax
* 50: Tata Consultancy Services
* 54: Digital River, an e-commerce outsourcing company
* 56: MicroTechnologies, a provider of IT support, service and management consulting services
* 57: IBM
* 58: Fiserv
* 60: CDW, a provider of technology solutions
* 72: Dish Network
* 78: Xerox
* 88: Iron Mountain
* 91: World Wide Technology, a systems integration company
* 94: Electronic Arts